


360. blue eyes

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [123]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 03:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8429509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Sarah thinks I want to go home with a sting of self-pity, but there isn’t really a home to go to – just her latest foster home, where her foster father hadn’t even blinked when a man in a suit showed up at the door and said I’m here for Sarah Manning.
In his defense: she hadn’t blinked either. Assumed she’d messed up again, and now she was being carted somewhere else – but she wasn’t expecting this, a laboratory where she got blood drawn before being locked in this parody of a child’s room with a girl who looks just like her. Sarah wants to cry, but only babies cry. So she doesn’t.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: abuse]

This stranger with Sarah’s face won’t pass the blue crayon. Sarah keeps asking for it, over and over, but the other little girl in this sterile pink bedroom just keeps drawing red angry gashes on her page. She is humming to herself very calmly. She won’t even look up.

“Hey,” Sarah says, and when her twin (her twin?) doesn’t look up she _shoves_ her. “ _Hey!_ ”

And she’s pinned to the pink bedspread, the other girl’s hands on her wrists and a blank sort of anger on her face that no eight-year-old should be able to muster up. Sarah goes perfectly still with an instinct learned from the worst of her foster homes, and after a moment it’s done. The other girl hops off of her and keeps coloring. It looks like she’s drawing nuns. Only they’re all being stabbed.

Sarah thinks _I want to go home_ with a sting of self-pity, but there isn’t really a home to go to – just her latest foster home, where her foster father hadn’t even blinked when a man in a suit showed up at the door and said _I’m here for Sarah Manning_.

In his defense: she hadn’t blinked either. Assumed she’d messed up again, and now she was being carted somewhere else – but she wasn’t expecting _this_ , a laboratory where she got blood drawn before being locked in this parody of a child’s room with a girl who looks just like her. Sarah wants to cry, but only babies cry. So she doesn’t.

“Who are you,” she says, and not for the first time. “Where are we. What’s going _on_.” The last word is teary, and the other girl blinks and looks up. She tilts her head to one side mechanically.

“Sugar,” she says slowly, syllables slurring together. “Honey honey.”

She has an accent. She’s – _Russian_ , or something. It’s the final straw: Sarah starts crying.

Her twin hits her, calmly and emotionlessly, right in the face. Shocked, Sarah stops crying. She reaches out and hits the other girl back. Then they’re hitting each other, scratching and biting and kicking and smashing their drawings on the bed. When Sarah was five she beat up her twelve-year-old foster brother and she _knows_ this, she knows how to do this. She’s had to learn. It doesn’t take long for her to pin the other girl to the bed – other way around, this time – and snarl in her face until she stops fighting.

“Talk to me,” she growls.

“Candy girl,” her twin croons.

“No.” Sarah uses her knee to pin one of the other girl’s wrists to her side, claps her hand on her chest, says: “Sarah.” She points at the other girl.

Her twin’s mouth opens into a perfect _o_ of recognition and she bumps her chin against her chest, says: “Helena.”

“Great,” Sarah says. “Do you speak English.”

She’s met with perfect blankness. Sarah bites her lip as hard as she can to keep from crying again, and says pleadingly: “You’re all I have. I don’t know where I am, or who these people are, or why they stuck a needle in me, and I _really_ need you to be able to speak English? Please?”

She looks back down. If it isn’t her imagination Helena looks sad, or pitying, or some emotion that Sarah really needs her to feel.

“You-are-my-candy-girl,” Helena says sympathetically. “’n you’ve got me. Wanting yooou.”

Sarah stares down at her. Helena’s lips peel back from her teeth in something close to but not exactly a smile. Sarah sighs through her nose, sharp, and rolls off. Helena sits up and rolls her wrists experimentally, taps Sarah on the shoulder, and says: “ _Sestra_.”

“Sister,” Sarah says.

“Sester-a.”

“Sister.”

“Seester.”

“Sister.”

“Sister.”

By the end of this recitation they’re sitting across from each other on the bed, Helena cross-legged and Sarah with her knees folded under her. “ _Sestra_ ,” she says experimentally, and Helena does that same flash of teeth. She reaches out and pats Sarah’s head the way you’d pat a dog, one-two-three.

“ _Koly ya vbyty yikh usikh i pity_ ,” she says, “ _ya viz_ ʹ _mu tebe z soboyu_.”

“Thanks,” Sarah says weakly. “I think.”

“Tonks,” Helena says back. “Tanks. Th. Thanks.”

Sarah nods at her, and reaches out, and pats her head. One-two-three. Helena gives her an owl-eyed blink and then, abruptly, bursts into laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> Helena is very comfortingly telling Sarah that when she kills everyone and escapes she'll take Sarah with her. What is family for, am I right?
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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